A Father's Pride
by w nymph
Summary: One Shot - After Mirai Trunk's return to the future, Vegeta reflects on his past, his future and his relationship with his future and present son…


Author's Note: I wrote this between May and July for the firsttime Austrian Aninite English Fanfictioncontest. It should be mentioned that, including me, only three brave souls dared to write an Englishfanfic. Nevertheless I'm very proud that this story won the first price. I had many half-ideas for what to wirite for the contest, and in May, while being totally obsessed with DBZ I started to write this. I think that the relationship between Vegeta and Trunks (both Future and Chibi) is one of the most complex and interesting in the manga/anime. I hope I managed keep the characters in canon.

Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Dragonball Z.

**--- A Father's Pride ---**

At first the news of his fatherhood had annoyed Vegeta. After all he did have to train in order to face the Androids, and the woman (no matter how useful she was at times) was just distracting him from his ambition to defeat and destroy his arch-nemesis Karkarott and the curiously purple-haired brat, she had given birth to, wasn't any better. He would have sacrificed them in a heartbeat, had it been necessary.

However now he just stood silently beside Baby-Trunks' crib, watching as the infant's chest rose and sunk in peaceful slumber, unaware of the horrors that had occurred in the days before.

Five days had passed since Gohan had archived the accentuation of Super Saiyan and used all his strength to destroy the lizard that was known as Cell. Five days since Karkarott (who just HAD to be the heroic one, by ironing out the mistakes made by his friends/family/rivals) had sacrificed himself by using Instant Transition, in order to stop Cell from destroying the Earth.

Five days since Vegeta had received the shock of his lifetime (both of them actually) as Cell's sudden chi-beam had blasted through his future son's chest, killing him in an instant and leaving Vegeta, who had never cared before about an ally's death (although he was prone to feel annoyance, after all on a mission a missing hand meant more work for everyone else), to feel a strong surge of hate, despair and a thirst for revenge he had never experienced before.

The feelings themselves were nothing new, he had harboured them for decades against Freezer; no it was their strength that surprised him. Never before had his blood felt frozen like at that moment, not even when Freezer (the sadistic bastard he was) had told him about the almost total annihilation of the Saiyan-race and not even when he had finally faced Freezer and realised that he was far to weak to challenge the tyrant, that he was totally at the lizard's mercy, he had felt such a maddening helplessness, for Freezer's true power was nothing compared to Cell's reborn form.

But in retrospective Vegeta had to admit that the most shocking thing (for himself as much as for the rest of the fighters present) was the fact that he actually cared. He couldn't even say when it had started. When he had first met the boy he had regarded him with annoyance, another of those weak hearted fools like they were common on Earth, and with jealousy, the thought of another one reaching the legendary level of Super Saiyan almost drove him crazy.

But as soon as he had reached that level himself, the thought of the boy resettled in the far back of his mind, for he was sure that he was far stronger than the boy, stronger than Karkarott and by all means way stronger than any Android that might have shown interest in ending his life.

In fact, Vegeta had pretty much forgotten about the visitor from the other timeline, until the boy had reappeared, just in time to watch the Namekian finish off Android 20. But even then he hadn't recognized his son. It took Piccolos careless whisper but with the name the connection was made easily.

He couldn't quiet remember what he had felt upon that discovery, for moments later Bulma had appeared above the battlefield, creating the Androids chance for escape (the stupid, meddling woman, she was).

So the next he remembered he had been incredibly annoyed, at the boy for leaving out major information about the technological terror from the future and his insistence that it was Vegeta's job, his duty to protect the woman and the brat, and at the woman for tuning up on the battlefield, a place she clearly didn't belong to (although she redeemed herself slightly by informing them of existence and location of Gero's secret lab).

Next thing he had blasted of, full anticipation for finally he would get the fight he had trained for, after all Android 19 and 20 had proven to be hardly a challenge at all. He wanted to test his limit's wanted to stand at the very brick of death before finally slaying his opponent, just like his blood and heritage demanded him to.

But just in the middle of his flight to the Northern Mountains he noticed the boy following him, his blue yes hard and almost unreadable but defiantly holding a stubborn edge. Deciding to test the boy's determination, Vegeta had jumped into Super Saiyan level, speeding off ten times faster than before, and he couldn't deny, neither then nor now, the strong surge of fatherly pride he had felt (and crushed as quick) as he had watched how purple changed into gold and ice-blue into teal, the trend mark signs of Super Saiyan transformation.

As he had seen then and experienced later, the brat had inhered both his parent's stubbornness. He should have known that the pride he had felt for him, no matter how short, was just the first sign of change.

Once they had reached the mountains they had powered down, neither of them saw use in wasting more energy than necessary while searching for Gero's hideout. They had spent the time in silence, only occasionally broken when Vegeta tried to lose the brat, who was persistent to stop him from "understating" Android 17 and 18.

Had Vegeta stopped himself to think through the situation he (probably) would have heeded the warning (in retrospective the haunted eyes and the despair with that the brat had tried to stop the awakening of a third Android should have told him that this Trunks hadn't lived something that could be called a childhood). But at that moment he hadn't been considering only arrogant and angry for all the brat had done after they had found the hideout was wasting energy.

After the Androids had ignored them so bluntly, Vegeta had immediately wanted to go after them only to be stopped by the brat, berated him for wanting to go alone, who seemed to lack all Saiyanpride (but who should he have gotten that from, after all the only one left to teach him had been Kakarott's good for nothing spawn) and who didn't seem to believe into his very flesh and blood's strength for he had opted to wait for KAKAROTT of all people.

And at the same time he held himself open for attack, apparently believing that his father of all people wouldn't betray this bit of trust he placed on him, a weakness that Vegeta exploited that instant.

Finally he was free to follow the Androids and so he did in his arrogance, believing himself to be invincible, stronger than anyone. Needless to say that in the end this arrogance was (once again) his downfall. After he had found them wandering on a mountain road, he had challenged them. Or to be more concrete HER. Android 18.

The battle against this particular tie can had probably been the must humiliating battle he had fought in the thirty-two years of his live. In a matter of minutes it had been clear that whatever advantages he might have held through training and experience were nonexistent in face of her eternal energy source.

It hadn't been a battle of tactics nor of strength but of endurance and he had to admit (in thoughts of course, he would've rather killed himself than voicing this out loud) that the brat, with his lack in technique and training (and of course trainers available), had done damned well in surviving so far.

Suddenly he had found himself lying in rubble, crying out in pain as his arm was twisted into the wrong direction. A moment later he registered a war cry and watched from the corner of his eye how a golden streak threw itself at the female Android. At the same time he felt how the rest of the Z-fool powered up and attacked only to be stopped all of sudden. Less than a minute later the Androids had archived total victory and decided upon that that none of them was worth getting killing by them.

To say that Vegeta had been pissed would have been the understatement of the century. He had seethed with anger and just after Baldy had played his part as Z-Ambulance by feeding them all with sezu beans he had been of again, this time to find some mountain chain that he could destroy to vent his anger.

The fight with Android 18 in someway had shocked and disturbed him and for a short while he had wondered whenever or not he had reached his limits and if he would die by the Android's hands, just like the brat had told them.

He had decided quickly that that couldn't be his fate. He wouldn't let it be. And this wasn't his limit either; he was the prince of Saiyans after all. No, he had thought, there had to be something else out there, something like… a second level of Super Saiyan.

At first he had regarded the idea as crazy, how could there be anything stronger than Super Saiyan, however the more he thought about it the more logic it became. After a while he had concluded that it was rather stupid to believe that there WASN'T something stronger, after all Saiyans increased their power with every time they returned from the brick of death.

So when he had met up with the Namekian, Baldy, Three-eyes and the brat in order to discuss the first appearance of the genetic monster that was Cell, he had promised them and himself to reach that level before leaving them to their thoughts once again.

So he had gone to meditate on the HOW of archiving Super Saiyan 2 and discovered soon that while the question of What had been solved it wasn't the HOW that was important but the WHEN for training like that took up a certain amount of time. Time they didn't have, after all between three mad Androids and an even madder bug that was sucking out humans like energy drinks, time was of essence.

He had kept meditating for four days. Sometimes in the middle of it the brat had appeared, apparently interested in the possibility of going beyond Super Saiyan. Vegeta had just ignored the boy who had kept his silent presence up, accepting the match of will and patience.

Then on the fifth day, Kakarott had appeared, back from the sickbed as it seemed, and proposed the solution for the time problematic he had been sulking about by telling him about the Hyperbolical Timechamber, the room where a day was a year.

Vegeta had gone in first, taking the brat with him. Kakarott had probably wanted to initiate some father-son bonding when he had asked him to take Trunks with him (the sentimental fool he was) but he would have taken the brat in anyway even though with quite different motives. He had wanted to make sure that the brat lived up to the potential that he posed as both Saiyan and as offspring of their races last prince.

The Hyperbolical Timechamber was unlike anything Vegeta had ever experienced. The ever-changing temperature and gravity made their training harsh but as he had told the brat, what didn't kill one made him stronger, and in case of a Saiyan that was meant quite literally.

So they trained and if Vegeta had been forced to credit Trunks for anything, it would have been the persistence that the brat trained with, especially since he wasn't quite used to intense trainings schedule that Vegeta had set up for both of them.

And over time somewhere in the year that they trained together they had reached an understanding. Trunks had hit his final-growth-stage that made his bones ache and training even harsher than it had been before, so that sometimes he would pass out in the middle of a spar.

Vegeta would then take a pity (at least he had, once he had remembered wincing his own final-growth, when Nappa had been the one to get him off the battlefield) and dragged the brat to his bed, leaving him there for recovery. And one of those times, Trunks had woken up while being carried back.

Vegeta had never found out if the trigger had been the exposure to one of his rare showings of kindness or some kind of nightmare (and frankly spoken he didn't quit care), but what ever the cause was it had driven the brat to start talking about the future. Vegeta had listened quietly to his son's whispered account and he hadn't quite liked what he had heard for it had remembered him far too much of his own childhood.

He doubted that Trunks later remembered what he had told him and Vegeta hadn't seen any reason to remind him, so instead they started to train even harsher. And after almost thirteen months he had finally been satisfied with both of their progress, knowing that now they were more than a match for both, Cell and the Androids.

So after exchanging information shortly with Kakarott, the woman and the rest of the Z-fools on the top of the lookout, he had left them, knowing of course that Trunks would be following shortly afterwards, no matter what he said or did. And followed he had to watch what was supposed to be an extremely one-sided battle.

The battle had indeed been one-sided the whole time, only that the dominating side had made a 180° change the moment Vegeta had allowed Cell to become perfect. That had been, as he came to admit later (only to himself of course), a rather large misjudgement on his part and stopping Trunks, who had clearly seen what had to be done, from finishing the bug off had been an even larger mistake.

The only thing to blame was his very own arrogance and the many assumptions Vegeta had made. For one he had assumed that no matter how much strength Cell would gain through fusing with Android 18, he would still be able to beat the bug in less than a heartbeat.

For another he had thought, that Trunks would never ever show the guts to turn on him, which was a waste of both of their energies, not even to stop a very potential disaster like Cell (although he couldn't deny the pride he had felt that moment, for Trunks wasn't nearly as foolish as Vegeta had believed him to be).

The final and potentially (at least for Trunks) more lethal assumption was that Vegeta had believed that Trunks would rather retreat than challenge Cell to a fight that couldn't possibly win. Oppose to Trunks believes, he HAD known about the supposed higher power-level that Trunks had discovered, just like he had known its faults.

Originally he had hoped that Trunks would use his newfound 'strength' against him while sparring in the Hyperbolical Timechamber, giving him the chance to show the brat that he was on the wrong track be knocking him down soundly. However Trunks had held back that strength, so Vegeta decided that he simply would defeat all their opponents beforehand and force Trunks to see his mistake afterwards, for no enemy in the galaxy would let Trunks live the moment he sacrificed speed for power (unless the enemy was Kakarott, of course).

But Trunks had stayed and faced Cell and as far as Vegeta was concerned it was nothing short of a miracle that Trunks had survived that encounter. Back then he had wondered for a moment about the relieve he had felt at the sight of an unharmed Trunks, but he had quickly suppressed both the thought and the feeling as Trunks told them quietly of the bug's plans for a tournament.

Vegeta had thought about berating Trunks for being an idiot (not that he would have done it for real, otherwise someone might have thought that he cared) but every thought in that direction had disappeared the moment he saw the fires burning in his son's eyes, fires telling of shame and thirst for revenge, eyes of a true Saiyanwarrior that made him know what came as Trunks announced that he would take on the challenge of the Hyperbolical Timechamber for a second time. One glance between them made clear that this time they would go on their own, for now they would only hinder each others training.

The ten days of trainings time they had been granted, were in any case the longest ones that Vegeta had spent within the Earths atmosphere and not just because of the nine months he trained in the Hyperbolical Timechamber. The waiting had made him feel sick for he had known for a fact that despite his training and the arrogant attitude he displayed simply because it was expected of him to stay arrogant no matter what, for he saw no need to worry the other Z-fools by showing that he was worried.

It had seemed like confronting Freezer with only half the knowledge all over again. Vegeta hadn't been able to even imagine what kind of power would be required to defeat and destroy Perfect Cell. Which had made Kakarotts strangely carefree behaviour the more suspicious.

But in the end even the ten days had passed and on the day X, Vegeta had been the first fighter to enter the scene of battle (the first of the true warriors at least; that fool Satan, a prime example for human stupidity, did NOT count as such). He had watched the battle of giants between Cell and Kakarott and couldn't help but be impressed by the sheer power that Kakarott had gained through training Super Saiyan to be his basic energy level.

However he (like everyone else) had seen that Kakarott would lose this time unless some kind of miracle intertwined and he (again like everyone else) had been shocked as he watched how Kakarott had given up the fight, admitting his weakness, only to send his spawn to replace him.

And Gohan, while of course no weakling in terms of strength, lacked the true warrior soul. Cell's struggle to bring out the hidden power in Gohan that had been heralded by Kakarott was short and ended in snapping whatever patience Cell had, driving him to create his breed, the mini-terrors called Baby-Cell.

Vegeta had hated them passionately; the power they had held hadn't seemed from this galaxy. He and Trunks had been the only ones, whom had been able to somewhat fight the breed as equals, but even together they would have been a long way of beating them.

Later on Vegeta had been told that Android 16, who had been fixed by the woman and her old man over the ten days, had helped Gohan to archive Super Saiyan 2. In all the stress of dodging and blocking while trying to keep up with the mini-terror he was fighting, he hadn't noticed that particular exchange. All he knew was that suddenly he had heard a scream and a moment later he had sat exhausted on the ground, unable to believe the scene his eyes were showing him.

He had watched unbelieving how Gohan had shown his Saiyan blood, self-confident and thirsting for battle, how Kakarott had sacrificed himself for their sake, how Cell had killed Trunks (Trunks, HIS SON) the second they had believed battle to be over, the moment they all had relaxed.

Logically he had known that Trunk's death would be short-lived, for now that Earth had a new guardian in Dende they wouldn't have to fear the loss of the Dragonballs in battle anymore, and that the death Cell had granted his son had been quick and almost painless (he should know, after all he had experienced this kind of death before). However at the sight of Trunks' lifeless body Vegeta had forgotten all logic. And it had almost cost them everything.

"It won't happen again!" he swore himself, returning from the world of memories, his eyes still on his infant son, who shifted in his crib and opened his eyes while yawning. Vegeta looked into his son's impossibly blue eyes, knowing that in another time they had been filled with pain and determination.

"But not in this timeline." he promised Trunks, both present and future, silently. He swore on his pride that he wouldn't let this Trunks experience the life of his future counterpart and he would make sure to never have to feel the pain of losing his son in front of his eyes ever again. He would train Trunks to be strong, stronger than himself, stronger than Kakarott, stronger than any of Kakarott's spawn.

Never in the whole time he spent reflecting and pledging his oath while absentmindedly picking up Trunks and holding him closely it occurred him what a change there had been in him and his thinking, for one and a half years ago (counting his stay in the Hyperbolical Timechamber) he would have simply left Earth and with the planet all the 'weakness' that it had awakened inside him.

Nor did he know about the blue-haired woman, who was well aware of those changes, who had watched the whole interaction from the beginning. Bulma smiled and knew now that Vegeta would never leave her again, for leaving her meant now to leave his pride, his son behind. And for Vegeta pride was everything.

_**------**_

Author's note: This was actually planned as two-shot, with the second part describing the relationship between Chibi-Trunks and Vegeta during the Buu-saga (Trunks POV). Maybe I'll write the second part some other time.

Please review.

Edited: 15/02/09


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